Daddy Will Always Love Me
by AberrantScript
Summary: Memories of his daughter haunt Lincoln for as long as he loves her... always.


**Author's Notes:  
**

I couldn't get this out of my head. After _Just One More Sin_ I thought it was over with... but I was wrong. It likely never will be, but I hope this will be the last time I write about it. Sigh.

 _Reader be advised_ _:_ Mention of abortion and suicide.

Disclaimer: _The Loud House_ Copyright Nickelodeon (2018)

* * *

DADDY WILL ALWAYS LOVE ME

 _Her eyes are so small as they look up at me. Her tiny, frail hands wrap around my fingers. She blinks her eyelids, never looking away from me. It is love at first sight for me; as an arrow strikes through my heart; as my soul permanently attaches itself to this tiny, itty bitty ball of joy and hope lying on my wife's breast._

I walk down a long, long road. The grey overcast hangs above, with still and silent trees surrounding on both sides. A haunted crow speaks in the distance, unwilling to come closer, unwilling to leave me be.

" _Da-da!" cries the toddler as she walks toward me on still-wobbly legs. She nearly falls, teetering over the edge of her balance… my hands twitch to save her, but I refrain; giving her the chance to do this herself, to be strong, to grow… she rights herself just in time and falls against my leg, wrapping her arms around me and looking up with wide, happy eyes. "Da-da!" I cry._

Gravel crunches beneath my boots as I round a bend. In the corner of my vision, a rusted iron fence extends from the trees on my left, the trees on my right. Up ahead, I know, is a broken gate. The sound of the wind pushing it open, pulling it closed… the sound of its wailing sorrow as its snapped hinges struggle to keep it in place is nothing compared to the sound resounding inside me.

" _Daddy?" my young daughter asks me as we walk hand in hand up the school's steps, "How long will you love me?"_

 _I look down at her quizzical eyes in surprise, but I smile nonetheless._

" _Daddy will love you always. Why do you ask?"_

 _She smiles, too, touching a finger to her chin in an endearing way she's done since infanthood._

" _Just wanted to be sure!"_

 _I watch as she drops my hand and runs toward the doorway, toward the beginnings of her life apart from her family…_

 _Right as my heart begins to break, she turns around and rushes back to throw her arms around my waist and hug her face to my side._

" _I'll always love you, too, daddy!"_

The gate falls to the ground, crashes into the yellowing grass, as I try to open it. I stare blandly at it, wishing… hoping… that I wasn't just like that gate. Then, I look up and realize… I'm just like that gate. Placed inside a graveyard… a heart rusting and creaking with age and despair… blown from side to side by each stray gust of wind.

I step forward, seeing the tombstone of some nameless person I do not know.

I see another.

And another.

The crow in the distance speaks to me, pleading for my sanity to return… but it won't.

The crow sees what I cannot. For there is nothing beyond this gate but me and my sorrows.

The crow fails to see what I cannot will away. For in front of me are the graves of ones that will haunt me for eternity.

And one… one in particular… stands in front of me… and I cannot look away as my feet force me toward it.

" _Daddy?" asks my adolescent daughter one day, "Am I a pretty girl?"_

 _I lower my book and turn toward her. I see her disheveled hair with a cowlick in the back just like mine, her freckles that dot across her nose and cheeks like precious constellations, her button nose, and that faint pink blush on her cheeks that has remained their permanently from her childhood._

" _There's none prettier, honey," I say with a smile on my tired cheeks._

 _She turns her eyes down, to the side, sighing._

 _The book lands on the table with a soft thump, as my feet carry me toward her._

" _Have I ever lied to you?"_

 _She sniffs as she looks up with eyes that are on the edge of crying._

" _N-no, b-but I don't feel like I'm-" Sniff. "-pretty."_

 _I come to her side and put an arm around her shoulder._

" _Emotions are sometimes fickle things, but they don't change the truth."_

 _She looks up at me. I look down at her with a smile._

" _And you'll always be that beautiful girl we brought home from the hospital fifteen years ago. And I'll al-"_

" _Always love me. Yes, I knooow, dad," she rolls her eyes as she looks away._

 _I reach over and yank a lock of her hair, earning a yelp and a punch in return._

" _And don't you forget it~"_

My feet carry me to a single tree in the middle of a fence. As the world around me grows still and silent, my eyes cannot look away from one tiny stone erected from the ground only inches away from this tree.

I fall to my knees and my hands itch to reach out and hug that stone.

I blink my eyes once and the stone vanishes.

And I cry.

 _A warm hand is wrapped around my forearm as I walk down a road made of carpet. My heart aches, my feet move with tired zest. I hear nervous breathing beside me and I sigh._

" _Dad?" she asks me in a whisper only I can hear._

" _Yes?" I reply the same way._

 _We reach the end of the line. We must part. But her hand remains on my arm. She turns to look at me as an audience wonders why she is stalling._

" _What if this doesn't work out?" she hurries in an anxious whisper._

 _I smile and stroke her white gloved-hand with my own._

" _Then, you can always come back to us."_

 _I release her. She steps up to the altar._

 _As I hear her vows, I can only think to myself… no matter what happens… no matter how far apart we are separated… I will always love my daughter._

 _And not even death can part asunder the conviction in my heart._

I reach into my back pocket and feel something that has grown familiar to me in the past few months.

I pull it out and lay it on my lap.

The sun glistens across a reflective steel.

I look in front of me to see nothing.

No stone.

No name.

Nothing.

" _Daddy?" my daughter asks me one day, "How long will you love me?_ "

 _My wrinkled cheeks smile._

" _How many times will you ask me this question?_ "

The crow looks away as the neck glistens at the base of my neck.

 _She smiles with her own wrinkled cheeks._

" _I just like hearing it._ "

 _I look at her with an expression of mirth and frustration._

 _I sigh_.

I cry.

" _Daddy…_ "

"D-d-daddy…"

" _Will always…_ "

Click. "W-will a-always…"

" _Love you._ "

"L-love you…"

A breath passes as I close my eyes… as my mind drifts once more to the face of a child that I was not allowed to see… to the smile the world was not allowed to witness… as I hear the laughter that was not permitted to exist… as I feel the warmth of a corpse that was never born…

Ahead of me, in my mind's eye, I see a darling angel with arms open, willing to spend a lifetime with my in heaven that she was not allowed to enjoy on earth.

And that beautiful voice that was never heard, that has always haunted my dreams and nightmares, speaks softly to me again…

" _You said you would always love me._ "

My finger twitches on the trigger.

"…and not even death will end my love for you."


End file.
